Blue Estate #12 – Quick Review

By: Viktor Kalvachev & Kosta Yanev (story), Andrew Osborne (script), Kalvachev, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox & Peter Nguyen (art), Kalvachev (art direction, colors, cover)

The Story: The first story arc of Blue Estate comes to an end: who will die and who makes it out alive?

Review: Boy, did I screw this up in my “Top Picks” of the week column.  Because Blue Estate had been away for awhile, I just mentally assumed that we were kicking off “Season 2” when in actuality we were ending the first story.

Blue Estate #10 – Review

By: Viktor Kalvachev & Kosta Yanev (story), Andrew Osborne (script), Kalvachev, Toby Cypress, Nathan Fox, Dave Johnson, Peter Nguyen & Kieran (art) and Kalvachev (art director)

The Story: It’s hard to describe in a single sentence – it’s weird things happening to a bunch of gangsters.

A Few Things:

1.  Art direction is amazing. – Blue Estate breaks the “rules.”  Usually when you see SIX artists credited for a comic, it means the art will be a hot mess.  Why?  With the typical comic, six artists means that Big Name Artist didn’t make his deadlines and the editor brought in a bunch of scrub artists to ship the comic on time.  That is NOT what happens with Blue Estate.  It’s almost like series creator Kalvachev knew it would be hard to get an A-list artist to commit to doing a monthly, creator-owned comic book…. but he figured he could always get several A-listers to draw 2-3 pages a month.  Thus, every month Blue Estate features this eclectic cast of artists, just kinda jamming on a comic.  The effect is great.  It’s almost like an anthology comic (in a way).  I just love the rotating cast of artists because it gives us a chance to see someone like Dave Johnson doing interior pages.  When was the last time Johnson did interior pages?

What keeps it from being a disjointed mess is that Kalvachev (a) surely runs a pretty tight ship from a project management standpoint and (b) knits everything together with the coloring.

2. Story winds around in a fun way. – The story is simply fun.  The essence of the story is: dumb gangsters trying to kill or screw-over each other.  But all the characters are a little too dumb to execute their plans, so they keep ending up in ridiculous situations.  For example, in this issue one character needs to sell a house ASAP to make money (to pay off some gangsters).  The good news is that he has a cash buyer.  The bad news is that he’s been put in charge of also transporting another gangster’s race horse to the race track.  If he doesn’t come up with the money, he’s dead.  If the horse doesn’t get to the track….he’s dead.  So, he goes to get the money and recruits a couple of dreadlocked stoners he meets to drive the horse to the track for him in their VW minibus where they proceed to get the horse STONED.  Surely, next issue he’ll have to explain why the horse was stoned.  What’s wonderful is seeing how many different plot threads are spinning at once.  It’s like watching a guy juggle 10 balls and just when you think it can’t possibly get crazier, he adds a couple more balls to the mix.  It’s insane, but in a good way.

Gotham City Sirens #13 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Peter Nguyen & Andres Guinaldo (pencils), Jack Purcell & Raul Fernandez (inkers), Tony Avina (colors) and Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: Catwoman and Harley Quinn finish their fight with Catwoman’s crazy sister who thinks that Catwoman has been possessed by a cat-demon.  Only by killing the cat-demon can Selina be set free….

What’s good: If you’re a big Catwoman fan, this issue will probably make you happy.  The whole issue revolves around Catwoman and her sister, Maggie.  Maggie is a crazy former nun who thinks she must exorcise this cat-demon that has possessed Selina Kyle/Catwoman.  Of course, since Maggie is crazy she is trying to perform the exorcism with a sword, which is not exactly the approved technique.

I also got a kick out of seeing Harley Quinn running around with her big hammer again.  For some reason, this element has been missing from a lot of issues of Gotham City Sirens as Harley has mostly just been doing cartwheels in the background.  The hammer is kind of her trademark, so I liked seeing her at least trying to blast Maggie with it…of course, since they’re fighting in a graveyard, she ends up pulverizing tombstones.

The final interesting thing this issue did was actually tossed in some doubt that perhaps Selina IS possessed.  There is one scene where Harley is compelled onto Maggie’s side of the fight and we see Catwoman with this freaky 6-eyed cat-thing emanating from her, which makes sense since cats are avatars of wickedness.  Since Tony Bedard is a guest writer for this issue, I’ll be curious to see if Paul Dini follows up on this.

Gotham City Sirens #12 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Peter Nguyen (pencils), Jack Purcell (inks) Tony Avina (colors) & Steve Wands (letters)

The Story: Is Selina Kyle possessed by an evil spirit?  Her cuckoo sister sure thinks so!

What’s Good: This is a nice little story that revolves around Catwoman and her nutty sister, Maggie.  Maggie is convinced that Catwoman is nothing but the manifestation of an evil spirit that possesses her sister (Selina) and that Catwoman needs to die so that Selina can be free.  This is going to cause obvious problems for the Gotham City Sirens.  Guest writer Bedard nails the characterization and I especially like what he does with Harley.  I always think regular writer Dini (who is taking another vacation from this title) writes Harley as too much of a ditzy-dingbat.  That characterization of her is so one-note that it gets old really fast, so I really like the way Bedard writes her in this issue: young and naive.  “Young and naive” has some legs (no pun intended) and can be an interesting character to read.  I think Bedard also deserves some kudos for making Maggie so creepy and insane.  Let’s face it, we get to see lots of nutty characters in comics and we all start to become immune to it, so you know a writer is doing something right when he/she is able to make us take notice of insanity.  Hey– bludgeoning a cat and a nun to death with a fire poker will do that!

We also get a new artist with this issue: Peter Nguyen.  I think he is pretty new to comics in general and I like his initial efforts here.  His style is a little manga-inspired and that usually bothers me, but I like this work a lot.  The art is pretty heavily inked and I’d almost like to see a little more of Nguyen’s art peek through because I think it looks strong enough that it could take less ink.

Secret Six #16 – Review

by Gail Simone (writer), Peter Nguyen (pencils), Doug Hazlewood & Mark McKenna (inks),  Jason Wright (colors), and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: Floyd and Thomas aid a grieving father while Black Alice petitions for a spot on the team.

What’s Good: While I did find the last big Secret Six arc to drag a little at times, it’s clear that the series is back in form.  Simone’s one-shots and shorter arcs have often been strongest, and so it’s only fitting that we get a few of these to recalibrate the series.  It’s watching these demented characters operate on a day-to-day level that has always proved fascinating, especially insofar as how they approach an average day on the job or how they interact with each other under “normal” circumstances.

And make no mistake, Simone shows once again that she knows her way around “demented.”  The serial killer introduced at the start of the comic is a prime example.  That Simone is able to breathe so much life into a new, background character  is really remarkable.  In just a few pages, she manages to give this guy such a distinct voice, one that’s all kinds of creepy and twisted and will have you once again wondering how Simone gets away with what she does given Secret Six’s place in the DCU proper.

New additions to a team are always rightfully to be viewed with scrutiny, and Simone effectively proves this issue that Black Alice is not only a character who fits the Secret Six absolutely perfectly in tone and character, but she also convinces me that I’d want to see Alice on a monthly basis.  She’s esoteric, nutty, and odd coherent.  She fits so well and brings such vitality, that I’m surprised we’ve not seen her sooner in Secret Six.  It’s clear that she belongs here, and she already shows this month that she carries very interesting, and mostly hilarious, dynamics with every person on the team.  Her comments to Ragdoll and Jeanette are highlights.

In the end, Secret Six this month is everything the series should be: twisted from cover to cover, yet bringing the laughs throughout.  It’s the perfect balance of dark badassery and black humour, it adds a wonderful new character, and we even get a Deadshot/Catman team-up, a dynamic that has always proved fruitful for Simone.